Radio Times

Review by:

David Butcher

When was the last time you saw a good news story about British business? Possibly if you saw the first of this excellent two-parter about Kirby cushion king Tony Caldeira and his project to bring manufacturing jobs back to Britain.

Whether the scheme will work is still unresolved as we rejoin Tony: of the 18 new staff he took on at his Merseyside factory, six have already left. It may be an area of high unemployment but making and packing cushions isn’t as easy as it looks. Still, it’s easier than doing the same job in China, as two of the staff find when they visit Tony’s factory there. All in all, it’s a cheery fable on the future of UK manufacturing, and on the evidence here, it has one.

About this programme

2/2. Part two of two. Cushion-maker Tony Caldeira's dream of bringing jobs from China to Britain is hanging by a thread. A third of the staff at his Merseyside factory have jumped ship, so with time running out, he and his team visit a Frankfurt trade fair, where they vie for orders against the Hang Zhou factory. Meanwhile, machinists Joanne and Sharon experience a culture shock when they fly out to see their Chinese counterparts face to face. Eventually, the time comes to make a decision about who is working best, so Tony arranges a direct competition between his two workforces.

Cast and crew

Cast

Narrator

Bill Paterson

Crew

Director

Anju Passi

Executive Producer

Mark Roberts

Executive Producer

Ashley Potterton

Producer

Anju Passi

Series Producer

Paul Durgan

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